Just when you think the Chief Moron can’t do anything stupider, he comes up with this. It is not a joke. It is real.
Is there a public-health expert or an epidemiologist among them? I can’t find one. Mostly bankers, executives, Trump buddies, and relatives. Shoot me now!
Trump is pronouncing that all authority to re-open America rests with him. That is wrong and even un-Constitional. As Andrew Cuomo said, “That’s what kings do!”
Read more about this insanity at Vanity Fair. (They say Ben Carson is on it, too, but that wouldn’t help matters.)
Fortunately, we have wags on the internet to temporarily boost our spirits. And this council is at least as good as the real one.
Oh, and Trump just halted U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, which bought into some bogus Chinese assertions about the pandemic early on. But stopping funding? That’s done to show that Trump doesn’t bear any blame. It’s WHO, Jake!
Well of course Wilbur Ross must be included since, after all, U.S. economic policy has “GALACTIC implications.”
What mindset thinks this a reasonable and appropriate collection of human primates for this purpose?
Shoot us all.
We were ‘probably’ doomed before, now it’s a certainty.
Trump has now said the dynamic duo is not on the committee. Stay tuned.
Yet another display of Trump’s kackistocracy.
That’s why, for me, the real line-up doesn’t need satirizing, especially Loopy Larry Kudlow and Somnolent Wilbur Ross. They already look like cartoon characters. I do hope The Kids make the cut, just for more lunacy.
Cleptocracy is an apt term.
Trump is using tax payer’s money for his own wealth and reelection purposes:
– “Democratic lawmakers and progressive critics expressed outrage Tuesday after a nonpartisan congressional body found that nearly 82% of benefits from a Republican tax provision in the most recent coronavirus relief package will go to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires and cost taxpayers an estimated $90 billion this year alone.”
(google “Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) tax relief Trump”)
– he ordered that his name appears on the stimulus checks send to Americans. (Like he ordered that his name appears on CDC documents send to people.)
Both terms work for me.
Scrooge McDuck is the best.
Diana, you might have heard by now that the Spartan Biomedical test kit has now been approved!
Oh good. I missed the announcements today. McMaster is working on a fast st home test as well that they think could be available in months. Something like that would be ideal in easing people back to work.
I just heard on the news that the other one, the antobody blood test, can get a result in 15 miins. but it’s still under review for use here. Hurry up already, eh!:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/despite-the-hype-canada-takes-slow-approach-to-covid-19-antibody-testing-1.4896645
This is the one McMaster researchers are working on: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/mcmaster-university-coronavirus-test-1.5530819
Cool! That would be a great test to have.
If I have one major complaint, it’s that Burns’s full name should be “Charles Montgomery Burns,” not just his middle and last name.
Has that line-up been officially confirmed? I saw White House denials earlier in the day (but if course, those mean nothing these days, sadly). On the bright side, I see the Wisconsin election was won by the Dem candidate after all: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52279608
Yes, that’s a wonderful silver lining from the Wisconcin Debacle. Did you see Trump’s virus briefing in which he said the only reason the Dems wanted to postpone that election was because he (Trump) had just endorsed the Republican candidate and the Dems were afraid to lose?
Meanwhile, back in reality, a survey of expert economists asked “Question B: Abandoning severe lockdowns at a time when the likelihood of a resurgence in infections remains high will lead to greater total economic damage than sustaining the lockdowns to eliminate the resurgence risk.” Results: 41% strongly agree, 39% agree, 14% uncertain, 0% disagree. 0% strongly disagree.
Never mind minor details like killing people. Trump’s rush to declare victory is stupid even in purely economic terms.
Indeed. Even our Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, said today: “The single most important thing we can do to protect the economy is to protect the health of our people”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52279871
Of course, it is reported that behind the scenes he advocates something rather different…
It’s important to remember that Trump has failed miserably at everything economic. His house-of-cards affluence is the product of a fortuitous stumble into the stupid-money world of celebrity culture on the one hand, and shady banks needing to launder Russian money on the other.
In terms of his fields of expertise – shallowness and dishonesty – this group is fabulous!
@Ken Phelps: You left out the hundreds of millions that came from his father. Notice that I didn’t say “that his father gave him” since he actually cheated his father out of large amounts of money as his father laid sick before his death. tRump has no ethics or conscience at all.
Don’t worry. Mark Meadows has an Associates degree. We should be all set!
In religious studies?
And if this were not pathetic enough, articles I have just been reading in the Post indicates about 175 billion of the 2 trillion relief package passed by the congress is money for high end real estate crooks like Trump and Kurshner. It is therefore, likely they will attempt to capture a big chuck of that money. I would reference the article but unless you take the Washington Post you could not read it anyway. Trump may not have a chance in hell of reelection but he will still rob the country blind thanks to our own idiots in congress.
Jared Kushner likes to own (and, of course, himself live in) high-end real estate, but it turns out the dauphin prince of the Trump administration is actually a “Slumlord Millionaire,” owning massive amounts of low-income housing. Indeed, it was by squeezing these low-income tenants to the max that the Kushner clan managed to service the debt on its white-elephant property at 666 Fifth Avenue until a Qatari-backed bank came along and bailed it out once The Kush’s father-in-law took office as US president.
Do these Trump folk know how to “drain the swamp,” or what?
They only wanted to drain the swamp so they could install a cesspool…something man-made dontcha know. clap, clap, clap. “Drain the swamp of Washington”…wow, that must be the grandest gaslight America has ever fallen for. Ooh, look at the brilliant leader in the sky…all orange, gassy and floaty. I wonder if my brain will squeak if I suck him in?
At the other end of the stimulus story is this obscenity (another day, another obscenity or several): – the treasury dept. has given banks and creditors to seize people’s relief checks for past debts https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/beyond-predatory-trump-treasury-department-gives-banks-green-light-to-seize-1200-stimulus-checks-to-pay-off-debts/.
At every point in the stimulus bill there are wormholes allowing various and sundry groups and institutions to rake in the bucks by bleeding or outright stealing the $1200 stimulus checks.
Money never gets infected with viruses
I’d like to find out some of these movie characters.
The internet wag version is very funny. But there may be a troublesome political dispute coming up. Academics, planners, techies, and many professionals can work from home. But most blue-collar production and service workers—in places like, say, PA, MI, and WI—cannot. This occupational distinction will lead different people to give different weights to certain choices. So if “reopening” becomes a matter of political controversy, it will be tricky to navigate.
The internet wag version is very funny. But there may be troublesome political disputes coming up. Academics, planners, techies, and many professionals can work from home. But most blue-collar production and service workers—in places like, say, PA, MI, and WI—cannot. This occupational distinction will lead different people to give different weights to certain choices. So if “reopening” becomes a matter of political controversy, it will be tricky to navigate.
Democrats will be pushing for better direct aid and unemployment benefits. Being forced back to work under high risk conditions is not popular with workers.
It seems that Sweden has tested the hypothesis that a less locked-down approach is OK, with their 5-10x higher death rate vs. Norway and Finland, resp.
If the senior leadership of the WHO covered up the extent and infectiousness of the virus for political reasons, then they are complicit with the CCP in the results.
It is always difficult to visualize these sorts of things. When it is large objects, they often use the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. Most people have never seen those things, so it remains abstract.
When I try to visualize human deaths, I tend to use Shoah comparisons.
This outbreak is certainly going to equal the deaths at Sobibor. If we get to Treblinka, temporary funding holds will probably not be enough.
If the hold in funding can be used to ensure that they reorganize with an apolitical and humanitarian mission, then I am for it.
I don’t hold much hope that it will happen.
Pace Donald Trump’s current posturing, the WHO wasn’t the only one covering up for China. Here’s the Donald’s own January 24, 2020, tweet praising China’s “efforts and transparency” regarding coronavirus containment:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220818115354923009
Of course, way back at the end of January, Trump was much more concerned with promoting the pending yooge win of negotiating a trade deal with China, than with the sirens going off in the intelligence community about the nascent pandemic brewing in Wuhan.
Where’s the spirit of working together to solve problems here? Does anyone think that the WHO wasn’t really trying their hardest or, worse, had some nefarious plot in mind? Surely they were just doing their best in an uncertain situation. Could they have done better? Name one organization that couldn’t when dealing with this pandemic.
If, as you suggest, WHO’s funding is being withheld so they do some sort of house cleaning or soul searching, why not just suggest improvements to them first? Cutting off their funding would only make sense if they had been told to make improvements but refused to do so, and then only AFTER the pandemic is over and cool analysis has been done with the clarity of hindsight.
All fake justifications aside, this is 100% clearly an attempt by Trump to shift blame, something that is really all he is doing these days.
@Paul Topping: “… clearly an attempt by Trump to shift blame …” That is what tRump has done all of his life so it’s no surprise that he has perfected it as his “escape goat”*.
*NOTE: I heard a dimbulb minister many years ago refer to the scapegoat as the “escape goat”. Knowledge is not an actual requirement (and often looked down upon) by televangelists.
You’d think someone claiming to be a man of the cloth would know better, since the source of the term “scapegoat” is Leviticus 16:8.
Looked up the etymology of “scapegoat” and it is, in fact, based on “escape goat”. Something to do with the Devil so I lost interest after that.
What a clown car.
If you haven’t seen Obama’s speech today endorsing Biden (and touching on a few other themes), it’s a good way to cleanse the palate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-s3ANu4eMs&feature=youtu.be&ftag=YHF4eb9d17
And here I thought one of the cornerstones of conservatism was state autonomy. Throw that baby out too…what the fuck, who cares, right?
@Mark R. State autonomy is only in effect when the US has a non-republican president. At all other times only a republican presidential dictatorship will do.
And don’t forget, the checks will come with Trump’s name in the memo field. Adding that will in all likelihood extend the time it takes to get said checks out (printing and all that I suppose).If you have direct deposit, at least you will not be subject to that ignominy.
Displayed by Fox News! Are they finding out which side their bread is buttered?
Point of order. I have to disagree with Mr Cuomo.
It’s NOT ‘what kings do’, not if they wanted to stay kings for very long. In the first place, most kings (and queens) knew to take advice from their advisers and nobles, Parliament etc.
And secondly, if they did go off the rails, the Establishment would usually find some way to curb them.
It is, maybe, what completely deranged dictators do. I think regime change is indicated. Your current dictator, who you seem to be unable to rid yourselves off, is fully prepared to wreck the US’s international relations and shred any remaining tatters of goodwill you might have had in his frantic quest to divert blame to anyone but himself. The US is steadily heading towards the status formerly enjoyed by North Korea.
cr
To be fair, I think you will find that the WHO have said, and I quote:
“Hope I die, before I get old”.
What kind of a health message is that?
Mebbe so, but at least they won’t get fooled again.
Love it – thanks for giving me something to laugh about!
😀
OMG this is so funny. I think it should actually be the motto of some health agencies too so it’s extra funny.
So much righteous indignation! Here, maybe I can lower blood pressures:
(CNN)There is a draft of a back-to-work strategy for the nation, created by a team led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to The Washington Post.- Apr 14th, 2020
(Zero to outrage in 3 seconds? If we’re not careful, “Why Evolution is True” will degenerate into Twitter.)
Did Trump mention this draft of a back-to-work strategy during his daily briefings? I don’t think so.
And you think Donald Trump — who has repeatedly demonstrated that he holds actual expertise and scientific consensus in utter contempt — will suddenly change his stripes and put his narcissism aside?
I am surprised that Trump did not appoint Bernie Madoff to his committee.
I see that Madoff and Bill Cosby are petitioning for release during the pandemic. tRump might as well put them to good use.
Madoff got caught. Trump likes conmen who don’t get caught.
Hey, that mock council isn’t really fair…the bottom middle gentleman isn’t really Slugworth! That’s Mr. Wilkinson, and he works for Willy Wonka!
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!
He is calling for armed insurrection! Is this not a ground for impeachment?
Yeah, because that remedy has worked so well lately.
Where does it say he is calling for armed insurrection? Mentioning the 2A is hardly substantive grounds for that charge. Did I mention how well impeachment has worked lately?
How are you going to save your right to carry arms while protesting in the streets? Carry pictures of guns? Or plastic pistols?